After the Storm with Tim Brown

[00:00:00] Can a passage mean more than the author intended? And the answer is yes. Can it mean other than

[00:00:07] the author intended? No, but it can be more. So for example, Moses writes, don't most of the ox

[00:00:13] while he's threshing, did he intend to convey that pastors are to get paychecks or to pull a

[00:00:20] salary from their ministry? No, that was nowhere on his horizon. But Paul uses it to make that

[00:00:27] point. A passage can mean more than the author intended, but it cannot mean other than the author

[00:00:35] intended. Hey, welcome to the Expositors Collective podcast, Episode 326. I'm your host, Mike Neglia.

[00:00:43] And the voice that you just heard is that of Pastor Tim Brown from Calvary Fremonts. Maybe

[00:00:50] you recognized his voice because he was our featured guest last week on episode 325. And

[00:00:58] he gave a message on Psalm 29 and then used that to illustrate the three different steps of sermon

[00:01:06] preparation and delivery. I loved it. The feedback that I've heard about that episode has been

[00:01:12] phenomenal. And if you haven't heard it yet, I'd recommend that you go back

[00:01:16] and listen to that episode first before you listen to this one. I have a follow up conversation with

[00:01:23] Tim and ask some further questions about some of those steps. And then we have just great

[00:01:29] conversations about honesty, philosophy, integrity, and so much more. Tim is going to be one of our

[00:01:39] main session speakers and also one of our small group coaches in Pleasanton, California on May 24th

[00:01:47] and 25th. And if you aren't signed up yet, I would encourage you to do so. Visit our website

[00:01:53] expositors.co and register you and your team to join us for a training event that's going to

[00:02:00] help you grow in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word. All right,

[00:02:07] here is Tim Brown and me discussing teaching the Bible and so much more.

[00:02:18] All right, hey, welcome to the expositors collective podcast. I'm very excited to be

[00:02:21] speaking with Pastor Tim Brown from Calvary Chapel Fremont. Tim, good morning. How are you?

[00:02:27] Good morning. I am doing well, though I think you should actually be saying good evening.

[00:02:33] Time zones are complicated. And then who knows at what point people will be listening to this?

[00:02:39] Hello. Greetings. Well, not super good at small talk. I just want to jump straight into this.

[00:02:46] So Tim, you've preached a lot of sermons over your life, but I'd love to know

[00:02:51] what was the first time you ever taught the Bible in public. Do you remember that?

[00:02:56] I don't. Back in February of 1973, I became a youth pastor. So that was 51 years ago.

[00:03:11] The fellow I replaced, there used to be a magazine put up by Campus Crusade or Teen

[00:03:21] Challenge, I forget. But he would just read articles from this magazine, Christian magazine,

[00:03:28] to the kids on Sunday morning. And then when I came and he knows going to Bible college,

[00:03:32] he said, Hey, will you become the youth pastor here? And so I began giving Bible studies.

[00:03:37] And so that was a little bit different than preaching. But when I would preach

[00:03:42] and we had a ministry then in San Jose called the mansion that started in April of 1973 at

[00:03:49] what's called the Hayes mansion in San Jose, South San Jose. And we had between 60 and 200 kids

[00:03:56] every Saturday night. And we were on what was called the Maranatha circuit. We would have the

[00:04:02] early Maranatha bands as they were traveling through the land come by. But I remember preaching

[00:04:09] then and I would preach like for 15 minutes. And in the space of that 15 minutes,

[00:04:16] I would have repeated myself three times just because I had run out of things to say,

[00:04:21] but I just felt I needed you're supposed to preach more. But now I can preach for 45 minutes an hour

[00:04:29] and I leave so much stuff on the editing room floor. I just have to trim it down almost

[00:04:34] anything can become a two or three partner now. And I just really have to discipline myself

[00:04:41] to keep within the 40, the 40 45 minute time frame. I had read in Time magazine years ago that

[00:04:50] the ideal sermon is 18 minutes long. And I thought, well praise the Lord, my people are getting

[00:04:55] two and a half ideal sermons every Sunday morning. What a blessing. Yeah, I would. Yeah,

[00:05:03] I'd love to. I mean, I'm just I'm like morbidly curious about that previous youth pastor back in

[00:05:12] January of 1973, the one before you just would read out articles from magazines. Yeah. Yeah. Well,

[00:05:20] he was a high school kid himself. I think he was a junior in high school. Okay. And just kind

[00:05:25] of rising up to ministering and he just ministered out of what he knew. Obviously,

[00:05:32] they had the Bible and everything, but he felt so inadequate to open up the Bible and to teach.

[00:05:38] And he thought, well, here's a ready made meals, MRE meals ready to eat kind of a thing.

[00:05:45] And so he gave it out. No, very well intentioned. Good. Yeah. Yeah. And when you started in February,

[00:05:55] what convinced you that you should try something different?

[00:05:59] Well, I just thought it was lame. Okay.

[00:06:04] And you know, early days of the Jesus, he's supposed to be teaching the Bible. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:10] And so it really wasn't something I labored through it all, you know, and racked. I wasn't

[00:06:16] racked with any kind of conscience or guilt about changing the method whatsoever. Yeah.

[00:06:22] Just flowed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, rightly so. But I appreciate even your generosity of heart

[00:06:30] towards that guy, even though what he was doing was lame. But yeah, he's trying. He's trying. Yeah.

[00:06:36] Yeah. Well then, yeah. So Tim, so then from February of 1973 up until now, I know that

[00:06:42] you've made choices. You mentioned even your choices of editing and length and these

[00:06:48] sort of things have been changed. But like, what are the positive changes that you've made in your

[00:06:53] preaching ministry over the past 50 years? I have tried to try to keep the cookies on the bottom

[00:07:03] shelves. I have tried to and dumb down. That's the wrong word. That's a pejorative. I've tried

[00:07:13] to keep simple. I think even the deep things of God can be simple. Simple doesn't mean shallow.

[00:07:27] Simplified, I think obviously can mean shallow. But I've tried to... I'm an abstract kind of guy.

[00:07:36] I like philosophy. I like to think in the abstract, but people like to hear in the concrete. I remember

[00:07:45] I had in Robinson said, I read a book, one of his books once, and he said,

[00:07:52] the art of preaching is getting people to see with their ears. And I thought, oh, that's

[00:07:58] beautiful. I really enjoy it. I really liked that analogy. And so you think about Jesus,

[00:08:03] he talked about nature all the time. And he was a very, very graphic, very graphic preacher.

[00:08:12] And so one of my goals has been to make people see with their ears and to understand. And so

[00:08:23] the art of illustration has been important to me. And then also practical, relevant application.

[00:08:31] And just remember reading once for these two ladies are talking. And one said, the other one,

[00:08:38] man, my preacher is so good. Everything he says is over our heads. Man, he's just so good.

[00:08:43] And the other lady said, that's not good. He's just a bad shot is what he is. And so I want to

[00:08:48] be a good shot. I want to be able to speak to the heads and the hearts. And I think

[00:08:54] my conception of preaching has been, it used to be, don't preach what you know, preach what you believe.

[00:09:03] I said, you know, you can know a lot about something and not believe it. But now my mantra

[00:09:07] just to myself is don't preach what you believe, preach what's life to you, preach what is life

[00:09:13] to you, almost an existential kind of a flow consciousness of you with this, not just what's

[00:09:21] the information of this passage, the verbs, the tenses, the voices, you know, all that kind of stuff,

[00:09:29] which is incredibly important. And we can get back to that. But what is Jesus saying to me? What's

[00:09:36] the existential truth in the sense that I'm living right now? What is the present tenseness

[00:09:45] of this passage for me? And I've noticed that as I've preached not just what I believe,

[00:09:55] but with that which is life to me, my whole visage, my whole

[00:10:01] countenance is different. My presence in that moment is different. And I preach it with so

[00:10:07] much more, I don't know, so much more authority, but so much more passion.

[00:10:12] Okay, yeah. So you preach what you know versus preaching what you believe. Did I get those

[00:10:19] rights? Yeah. And then preaching what's life to you. Yeah. Yeah. Preaching what's life to you.

[00:10:26] And so that's been something of a development, evolution, I guess that's not a good word,

[00:10:31] a development in my preaching. But I really try now to be simple and to have illustrations

[00:10:39] and applications. And basically what I tell our guys is when you're preaching,

[00:10:42] make a point, illustrate it, applicate it, go on. Make a point, illustrate it, make application,

[00:10:48] go on. Well, okay. And so as you are journeying through books of the Bible and there's different

[00:10:55] passages that come up, like what happens when there's a passage and the truth in that

[00:11:02] passage, it's not really bringing life to you, if I could say that. Like maybe there's

[00:11:08] certain things where your countenance is changed because this is incredible. But then

[00:11:13] this week's message just kind of isn't doing that for you. Yeah.

[00:11:18] All, all, and even though I've been doing this for 50 years in one capacity or another,

[00:11:24] almost every week I despair of coming up with something. I know that sounds,

[00:11:32] it sounds silly to someone would just preach the word brother just, you know,

[00:11:36] but, but it's that challenge of life. I wanted to, so if I'm preaching on the rapture

[00:11:46] of the church, I want to have within me a, an anticipation, a, do I just believe this

[00:11:57] because I'm a Calvary Chapel pastor or is it something that's life, life to me.

[00:12:05] When it comes to any kind of doctrinal sermon theological point, to me there has to be the,

[00:12:16] Jesus said my words are spirit and our lives. And so for me, if I can't touch the life of the

[00:12:21] thing, I can touch the concepts of the thing. But if I can't touch the life of it,

[00:12:27] there's something lacking in me. And so life isn't then just a matter of study. I got to find a verb

[00:12:33] or a noun or some, it's a matter of my prayer and my, my, my, my being as it relates to that

[00:12:42] passage. And so, I mean your question is very logical. You know what do you do? You can't

[00:12:48] find life. I almost demand it of myself and I can feel it when I don't, when I get up to the pulpit.

[00:12:56] I don't know if anybody else can because you know, you can fake passion, but

[00:13:01] I can feel it within me. Yeah, so you can fake passion, but you don't want to and you're not

[00:13:09] advising it. I heavens no. Yeah. No, no, no, no. But see, someone would say that

[00:13:17] here's what hypocrisy is in the mind of so many that maybe I feel this way about you.

[00:13:24] And if I don't say, if I'm angry at you and I don't say it, if I don't express my authentic self,

[00:13:30] that I'm a hypocrite, I'm holding something back. But I would say that's not a hypocrite.

[00:13:35] A hypocrite isn't someone who doesn't act in concert with their feelings. It's someone

[00:13:39] who doesn't act in concert with their values. My value is you're a brother. My value is I

[00:13:45] love you. My value is love covers a multitude of sins. My value is the problem isn't with Mike,

[00:13:50] the problems with me. And so for me not to speak to you angrily or express my anger to you,

[00:13:58] to me that's a virtue. It's not advice and someone says if I suppress it, I'll blow up.

[00:14:04] And I say who made that up? I don't agree with that at all. You know, I think that might

[00:14:09] be psychologically true for some people in some instances, but it's not. Certainly it's

[00:14:13] not true all the time. And so my value is when I preach, I want to be in the moment.

[00:14:23] I want to be in the moment so I can speak forcefully, speak with a smile because that's a value I have.

[00:14:32] And even though this particular thing in the passage isn't speaking to me,

[00:14:38] I can believe that Jesus gave that to me to speak to you. And so there's a passion just

[00:14:42] in that, in the calling of being a pastor. So I think you can touch passion at different levels

[00:14:49] of the preaching moment where it comes, whether it comes from the text or comes from your calling,

[00:14:53] comes from your love for the people. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. On the one hand, yeah,

[00:14:58] that is a very deep and thoughtful observation even about the spirit of our age, which is,

[00:15:04] yeah, I have to be true to myself. I have to voice every thought or every feeling

[00:15:09] deserves to be voiced. Yeah. So you're kind of engaging with the current thought and then

[00:15:17] you're helping us to think a little bit higher and bring out that practical application,

[00:15:21] which goes back to what you were saying earlier on, that you want to grow in that

[00:15:24] you want to be a very simple communicator. You want to have big thoughts but then

[00:15:28] communicate it very simply. And that's hard to do.

[00:15:32] Well, the spirit of our age says your conscience is held captive by your feelings,

[00:15:38] by your emotions, by your intuitions. To me, my conscience is held captive by the Word of God.

[00:15:44] And so if something contradicts that, you know, your experience, your insight,

[00:15:52] my conscience isn't held captive by your insight, your experience, your feelings,

[00:15:58] your deep feelings, your passion. My conscience is held captive by the Word of God.

[00:16:03] And that has always been an anchor, an anchor for me. And so when I find my life drifting out of

[00:16:09] that, I've always, since it's anchored, I'm always tugged back. Yeah. Well, I'd love to

[00:16:15] talk more about this. However, the reason why I chased you down and got you onto this show

[00:16:23] is because I want to talk with you about Psalm 29. It came across my screen months ago that you did

[00:16:33] one of the most creative messages I've heard on sermon preparation in my whole life. And I've

[00:16:40] been like, Tim, I'm obsessed with sermon prep and I'm obsessed with people talking about

[00:16:45] different aspects of sermon prep. And what you did six months ago with Psalm 29 was completely

[00:16:53] unique. And the listeners of this podcast would have heard it last Tuesday, hopefully. If not,

[00:16:59] they could pause and go back and listen to it. But like how on earth did you come up with that?

[00:17:05] The idea of storms as a synonym or parallel with sermon prep and delivery?

[00:17:14] Well, in study, obviously you read commentaries. And so I was reading Psalm 29 and

[00:17:21] teaching through the Psalms. And it talks about the storm that forms over the sea and then

[00:17:29] breaks upon the Lebanon and then channeled into the Jordan Valley. And I thought, well,

[00:17:36] this just can't be a descriptive Psalm of a powerful storm. And that's just it.

[00:17:44] That someone's in awe of nature, which I guess that would be okay. But it didn't

[00:17:50] satisfy the itch inside of me. So I read a commentary. It says, this describes a

[00:17:56] storm that begins over the Mediterranean and then it's blown inward by the prevailing winds

[00:18:01] and breaks against the Lebanon coast. And then it's channeled by the winds into the Jordan Valley,

[00:18:06] and it wastes itself in the Kadesh in the wilderness of Kadesh. And so I was thinking

[00:18:13] about that. But it begins, you know, ascribed to the Lord, O sons of the mighty ascribed

[00:18:17] to the Lord glory and strength ascribed to the Lord, the glory do his name worship the Lord.

[00:18:22] And so it begins with worship ascribe just means to worship, to write, to declare.

[00:18:29] So worship the Lord and is directed to the sons of the mighty. And I thought, well, who are the sons

[00:18:38] of the mighty? And so began to think about that. And then verse three talks about the voice of the

[00:18:44] Lord. And I thought, well, you know, God calls his prophet sometimes the voice of the Lord.

[00:18:51] And so for me, just that one insight that men, prophets, preachers can be the voice of the Lord.

[00:19:01] That's just the one thread I began to pull on. And basically, you hate to think of the

[00:19:09] scripture unraveling, I think maybe it ravelled, I'm not sure what metaphor to use, but

[00:19:14] just this thing opened up in front of me and I just began to think. And how I got there, I don't know.

[00:19:23] But now how does a form, how does a storm form out at sea? Well, there's the evaporative process,

[00:19:30] the condensation process, and then the precipitation process. And that's all described

[00:19:35] there in Psalm 29. And then I think just by, it's not a leap of logic, it's just a step of logic

[00:19:45] that it talks here about the sons of the mighty and the voice of the Lord. These are men.

[00:19:51] These are men who are speaking the word of God. How does that word of God come to someone? And how

[00:19:58] does it form in your soul where there's the, well, just like a storm, there's the evaporation,

[00:20:03] the condensation and precipitation process. And so I just used that as an analogy of preaching.

[00:20:14] To me, it's an allegorical use of Psalm 29. I know allegory is a huge bad word for some people.

[00:20:20] Allegory just means analogy. And we use analogies all the time. Paul uses analogies. But that's

[00:20:27] what an allegory is. Pilgrim's progress is an allegory, which is just an analogy. And so

[00:20:34] it's not that allegories are bad. It's the bad premises of an allegory that might be bad,

[00:20:39] just like bad premises and logic would be bad. And so I just began to think of it that way,

[00:20:46] that this is the process of sermon preparation and preaching, evaporation, getting the word,

[00:20:55] condensating within your soul, you're getting a burden. And then you preach it to the people and

[00:21:02] you dump on them if you would. Yeah. I mean, I appreciate your highlighting that this is not

[00:21:09] what David had in mind when he penned it. Right. No. And then here's the theological question,

[00:21:16] homilical question, hermeneutical question, is can a word, can a passage mean more

[00:21:23] than the author intended? And the answer is yes. Can it mean other than the author intended? No,

[00:21:29] but it can be more. So for example, Moses writes, don't most of the ox while he's threshing,

[00:21:35] did he intend to convey that pastors are to get paychecks or to pull a salary from their ministry?

[00:21:43] No, that was nowhere on his horizon. But Paul uses it to make that point. A passage can

[00:21:50] mean more than the author intended, but it cannot mean other than the author intended. So I have no

[00:21:58] theological hermeneutical problem whatsoever in taking Psalm 29 and analogizing it as the preaching

[00:22:06] moment just using the rhythms that the Psalm provides. I don't think I'm

[00:22:14] doing damage at all to the rhythms and the patterns that are inherent in the Psalm. I don't have to

[00:22:26] be goofy with it. I know this verse says this, but I don't have to do that. I don't have to

[00:22:33] do intellectual backflips to make it work. It just flows as I think that's one of the

[00:22:39] reasons you wanted to interview me. It just flows so wonderfully. Listen, this is not an ambush.

[00:22:44] I'm not here to ambush you. You got it wrong. But I think... Just teasing it out. We're all

[00:22:50] preaching nerds here. Yeah, theological method is important. I just don't want to have a

[00:22:56] pragmatic, oh, this works and that works. It's not that at all. There's a theological methodology

[00:23:01] behind it and it violated nothing of mine that I could see. Yeah. And I think your

[00:23:08] thesis was or your big idea was the dynamics of teaching and preaching is analogous with the

[00:23:14] formation and venting of a storm. Right, yeah. I think, yeah. And so, yeah, there's the

[00:23:20] evaporation, condensation and precipitation. Would you mind just kind of, yes, like of those three?

[00:23:28] Now again, realizing that the listeners of this podcast, they would have heard the whole

[00:23:32] thing last week. Okay. So there's no need to to re-preach it. But like of those three,

[00:23:38] which ones do you enjoy the most these days or what's something that you've learned to appreciate

[00:23:45] over these 50 years of preaching God's word? What I enjoy the most, obviously, not what's

[00:23:55] most important. They're all crucially important. What I enjoy the most is the condensation process

[00:24:04] where it comes together. This cloud forms in my soul and in my heart and like I say in the sermon,

[00:24:15] this, this, this, this, this, and it just grows and grows and grows. And obviously, there might be

[00:24:21] some foreign drops you have to get rid of because, oh, that's not going to work or that's not really,

[00:24:27] that doesn't fit and whatnot. But it's that condensation. It's that burden. And that's

[00:24:32] where I get the life is where the burden forms within me. For me, I think for me preaching

[00:24:39] is not just preaching to the head and giving people information. Basically, it's taking what

[00:24:44] they know up here and pushing it down, pushing it down into their heart. I think that's most

[00:24:50] of what preaching is even though we try to be clever and we should be, you know, fresh and

[00:24:55] clever in, in, in conveying information. What we want to happen within them is a burden,

[00:25:04] something that's pushed down into their heart that they leave with the greatest compliment I've ever

[00:25:12] had as a pastor was there was a fellow about eight years ago. He said, pastor Tim, when I

[00:25:19] leave Calvary Chapel Fremont, I want to live for Christ. I thought, wow, what could be a greater

[00:25:30] compliment than that? It's not, hey, you know, you preach better than Mike Neglia,

[00:25:35] you know, or something like that. Impossible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I want to live for Jesus.

[00:25:42] And that's the, that's the, you know, teleological moment of preaching, if you would.

[00:25:46] That's what you want them to leave with. You want them to leave with, with Christ,

[00:25:51] with, and then a burden themselves. I've got a calling. I've got a vision. There's something

[00:25:57] that, that I want to do maybe not just with the sermon, but with my life. I want my life to

[00:26:02] serve the Lord. To me, that's powerful. Yeah. Yes. And it's, yeah, rather than walking away

[00:26:10] saying, man, I learned something new about Jesus. You know, that's, that's a good

[00:26:16] or then even like I had an encounter with Jesus that I'm leaving behind as I leave. But yeah,

[00:26:22] I want to live for Jesus, you know, taking this with me out into my week. That's, that's wonderful.

[00:26:29] And I'm glad when people get convicted, like, you know what it's like to sit

[00:26:35] in a sermon and just to have the Lord just, it's almost a visceral kind of experience that you're

[00:26:41] having as, as so and so is preaching. Cause the God is just dealing with you so heavy.

[00:26:46] And so many people, you've heard it too, oh, I was just so convicted by that. So convicted.

[00:26:51] And to me, that's great. But that means the knife went deep inside of me. That's conviction.

[00:26:57] It doesn't matter to me how deep the knife goes in. It's how much as a knife cut out.

[00:27:03] Okay. And I think people equate conviction with kind of the end result of spirituality.

[00:27:11] Oh, I'm spiritually mature because I was convicted. Oh, I was so touched. But the end result is how

[00:27:16] much was cut out? You know, how's that going to make you different? And I think some people are

[00:27:21] like conviction junkies, you know, they just want to feel that the weight of God on them kind

[00:27:27] of a thing. And it has to be more than that. It has to be removed, whatever it is removed, you know,

[00:27:33] a love of porn, maltreatment of your wife or whatever, that has to be cut out.

[00:27:40] And that's the renewing power of preaching. Yeah, I remember a while ago, you know, as,

[00:27:47] as, and this is no disrespect to, to this man, but you know, me and my peers would kind of

[00:27:53] pass around Paul Washer sermons, you know, like, oh, you got to hear this. Oh, you're going to feel

[00:27:59] like the most insignificant nothing, you know, on the, on the, the soul of God's boot, you know.

[00:28:05] And, you know, it's kind of like, oh yeah, I am a worm. Oh, and yeah. And again, like that's not,

[00:28:14] that's not how Paul Washer probably is intending, but that's kind of, that was like this new

[00:28:18] experience. And I don't really know if God was glorified in that.

[00:28:22] Yeah, well, probably his, I've just listened to a couple of Paul Washer sermons and probably, you

[00:28:28] know, the Bible says love believes all things, which means give every man that been in from the

[00:28:32] down, lovers and suspicious, that he was probably not just aiming for conviction, but aiming for

[00:28:41] repentance too. And that's the, that's the cutting out conviction followed by repentance.

[00:28:47] And so then if a man repented, he wouldn't be walking away going, oh, he'd be walking away going,

[00:28:53] Oh, God, I'm free of that thing. You know, so if you had just repented, if you had just repented,

[00:28:59] Mike, after listening to Paul Washer. Yeah. Yeah. And certainly nothing wrong with,

[00:29:03] with, with like what he's saying, it was just this idea of like, yeah, the real test of my

[00:29:08] spirituality is how bad can I feel? And, and that's not, that's not it. But, but

[00:29:14] speaking of that, like, you know, one of the things that was the most like gripping

[00:29:21] in your sermon and the presentation and, and your slideshows, you put a lot of work into,

[00:29:24] into the slideshows. But you talked about like the, the precipitation, like the, it comes down.

[00:29:31] And that sometimes it actually can come down too harsh. And you spoke about how there's

[00:29:36] like, there's a hail storm sometimes. And you had a slide of a photo of like,

[00:29:41] like a woman and her baby, and they had like survived like this, this hail storm. Yeah.

[00:29:46] And she's, she's all battered and bruised. And he said something along the lines of like,

[00:29:52] you know, this woman like survived one of your sermons. And like, I hated that, you know,

[00:29:58] I hated it. I hate the thought of it. I hate the image of it. But like, yeah, what,

[00:30:04] That's what you just described out of the Paul Washer sermon.

[00:30:06] Yeah. Yeah. I was that one. Yeah. Yeah. But like, yeah, like what prompted you to include that?

[00:30:14] And I'd love to hear some more like additional thoughts from you about like hail storm preaching.

[00:30:19] What made me think about the hail storm or that particular slide?

[00:30:24] Either or. Yeah. Why, why was I included? Well, to give, to give a graphic illustration of

[00:30:30] here's how some people leave our services, you know, bruised and broken and bloody and

[00:30:34] not blessed and ready to live for Christ. Well, the third part of that, the process is

[00:30:40] precipitation. Yeah. And then again, just to me, just logically, there's different types of

[00:30:45] precipitation. There is the, the, the refreshing rain. What did I say that

[00:30:55] a consistent rain can give like four inches and 24 hours, but a thunderstorm can do that

[00:31:01] in 20 minutes, you know? And so that's what we want to know. We just want to unload on the people

[00:31:08] in a, in a gracious manner, but we just want to give them all of God that we can in that time.

[00:31:13] Well, there's different types of precipitation than snow, sleet, hail, drizzle. Have you ever

[00:31:19] drizzled on your people, you know, inadequate preparation and so that

[00:31:26] just the various types of precipitation. And I thought, well, they fit because sometimes a preacher

[00:31:32] can, his sermon can be like a hail storm that does more damage than good. Sometimes it can be

[00:31:43] sleet, just a cold, you know,

[00:31:47] it's the word, but it doesn't warm you up. It doesn't teach you, it doesn't fill you.

[00:31:56] You know, here's all your responsibilities that you're not doing and

[00:31:59] you know, why don't you bring more people to church? And why don't you pray more?

[00:32:02] And why don't you give more? Why don't you serve more? And so either hate hail or sleet,

[00:32:09] snow, I guess can be refreshing, but I don't want to sit. I don't want to sit in a snow storm.

[00:32:16] Kind of a thing. And some of them overlap, but I think the thing that most convicted me

[00:32:25] in all of that is the drizzle. Do you drizzle on your people? Just and you know, and sometimes,

[00:32:32] Mike, I'll go to a pastor's conference and big name so-and-so gets up. And

[00:32:38] I hate to be critical, but you know, my spiritual gift is judging others. And so-

[00:32:45] Yeah, listen, he's as critical as you like. Just don't use any names.

[00:32:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, to me, I just like, he took his Wednesday night

[00:32:55] Bible study that he gave to his church, put it in the microwave and he's giving it to us.

[00:33:01] And there's no audience analysis. There's no sense that here's some pastors.

[00:33:06] They're on the edge of moral failure. They're on the edge of despair about their ministry.

[00:33:12] They're struggling with different things in their marriage. And you're giving us a Bible study

[00:33:17] about the rapture, you know? Or something that is not relevant to the life of the ministry

[00:33:31] and the power of the ministry. And obviously, there's no problem with the rapture. But it's,

[00:33:37] it's, I think along with scripture analysis, we preach, we have to do audience analysis.

[00:33:43] And I think so often when I go to conferences, I just don't think that the

[00:33:49] speaker has given enough thought to audience analysis. And it's not that I'm sitting down

[00:33:54] there going, I could do a better job than you. I'm sitting down there going,

[00:33:58] you could do a better job than that. You know, please, please think of us as you come up and not

[00:34:05] just give us a run of the mill Bible study kind of a thing. And so if I'm wrong in that, I'm wrong,

[00:34:12] but I've been discouraged. That's too strong. We're just disappointed. And just bored to

[00:34:23] really hit some bastards. Yeah, no, I don't take notes anymore. My my my history of conferences is

[00:34:31] when I first went, I just fill it pages and notes, and then half a page, and then maybe just the

[00:34:38] thesis. And then I'm studying for my own stuff now while you're speaking. And I have my own

[00:34:46] unfinished sermon in front of me. And so I make the notes on it. So I know I'm pure evil, but

[00:34:51] that's that's been my development or the de development and note taking at conferences.

[00:34:58] Well, there's there's worse things. There's worse things out there.

[00:35:01] My goal in preaching is that the guy who got saved yesterday can understand

[00:35:09] and be blessed. And the person who's been saved 40 or 50 years will walk away going,

[00:35:15] boy, you know, I never knew that or what? That's a fresh presentation of that. And not just

[00:35:23] that it tittle it in my head, but it touched my heart too. I want to live for Christ. Yeah.

[00:35:28] Yeah. Well, you spoke about your your devolution of the conference note taking over the years.

[00:35:36] But also, I know there's progress and other things kind of as the last question. I

[00:35:41] always end these interviews by asking like, well, how are you trying to grow or to improve?

[00:35:46] You know, I mean, I'm looking at the calendar. Like you mentioned that it was February 1973

[00:35:50] that you started preaching and it's we're recording this in February 2023. So we're

[00:35:55] like actually literally at the 50 year mark 2024 is Ireland a year behind my goodness.

[00:36:03] Are you in the annual daylight saving time? Daylight savings year. It's a leap year.

[00:36:09] Actually, it is. Oh man. Okay. So we're coming up on 51 years. Maybe we'll edit that out.

[00:36:17] But 51 years. And I bet that you probably still want to continue to grow or to improve.

[00:36:26] Yeah. So Tim, like how are you trying to get to get better? What do you want to improve in next?

[00:36:31] It would become more simple in my applications. And by by simple, I mean concrete. I want to

[00:36:43] take whatever theological principle is being introduced by that text. I don't think I've

[00:36:51] ever used the word pericope in a sermon, you know, for years I thought it was pericope,

[00:36:58] but it's a pericope. Me too. Me too. The first time I heard someone say it out loud. It's like,

[00:37:03] yeah. Yeah. And so I try to, I try to be as simple as possible. But again, simple doesn't mean not

[00:37:17] deep. Something can be, Jesus loves you. I mean incredibly simple, but it's the deepest

[00:37:25] soul forming, reforming, you know, message that can almost be out there. And so I try to

[00:37:36] be hard hitting. I'll read a book. It's 250 pages long. And I'll put it down and I'm mad

[00:37:44] because he could have said in 50 pages what he said in 250. He said it, then he reiterated it,

[00:37:51] and then he restated it, and then he said it again, and then he was redundant on his reiterations.

[00:37:56] And boy, so I try to be as concise as I can and not just give this verbal

[00:38:05] onslaught with all of the background of the passage. So I'm really editing out

[00:38:12] as much as I can the flood of information on background, historical cultural linguistic

[00:38:21] theological, and just trying to identify the core, the core. Like you said, my sermon,

[00:38:31] sermon preparation and delivery is analogous to the venting, the formation of the venting of a storm.

[00:38:38] I mean that was, that's the essence of the thesis of the message. And so you were able to

[00:38:44] find my thesis statement. So I look for thesis statements to speak, and that can help to

[00:38:49] simplify. And then I can deal with a lot more information if you would, a lot more material

[00:38:55] in a shorter amount of time because I'm crisp. Crisp in my thinking, like I said, I should say

[00:39:01] concise in my thinking, crisp in the pulpit. And I find that a lot of guys are not concise

[00:39:07] in their thinking, crisp in the pulpit. I have a book called Explore the Book by J. Sidlo Baxter.

[00:39:13] It's a one volume commentary in the whole Bible. If I had to get rid of every book but one,

[00:39:17] you got it there. Yeah, if I had to get rid of every book but one, that's the book I would keep.

[00:39:24] He can say in a sentence what it takes other men a paragraph to say. He can say in a paragraph

[00:39:29] what it takes other men a chapter to say. He can say in a chapter what it takes other men

[00:39:33] a whole book to say. He is he is the epitome of conciseness and crispness. Yeah, so yeah.

[00:39:40] And all I get in get Baxter. That's my that's my counsel. Yeah, well, could you hear all

[00:39:46] the books fall as I took this out? I don't know if the microphone was sensitive enough,

[00:39:50] but I now have a big mess to clean up because I wanted to. Okay, yeah. So on ironically,

[00:39:57] on conciseness, here's a few more thoughts. So I have two things. Number one, I've been

[00:40:07] advised and I think it's really good advice and worth passing on to really make use of

[00:40:13] study Bibles. I think as pastors and preachers, we want the commentaries which expand on every

[00:40:20] single jot and tittle. But someone said that in addition to that also look at the study Bibles

[00:40:26] and see how instead of how to expand on something, how can you simplify something? How can you say

[00:40:32] in a sentence what the commentary is saying? Good point. And then you write, yeah, Jason

[00:40:36] LeBaxter, but then something that you know, in one of our like training events that we did recently

[00:40:44] had a Q&A panel and somebody mentioned the importance of having like a thesis statement

[00:40:50] or a big idea statement. I think as Haddon Robinson would call it. And there's a lot of Q&A,

[00:40:57] a lot of questions about the importance of having a thesis, the importance of, you know,

[00:41:02] and people were pointing out that the Bible doesn't really do that. The Bible doesn't force you to have

[00:41:07] that. Why should we have a thesis statement? So how would you answer that question? Like what is

[00:41:12] the point of a thesis statement for a sermon? And then how do you land on that and communicate that?

[00:41:20] Well, I think what we're going to find in Calvary Chapel is

[00:41:25] two separate approaches and then kind of a wedding of the two. First of all,

[00:41:30] is the run on Bible study where I'm just going to go verse by verse by verse by verse,

[00:41:35] not necessarily thematic. If you're just doing that, there's no need for a thesis statement

[00:41:42] because if you did have a thesis statement when you go under verses three and four, it's not

[00:41:49] going to line up with that thesis. You're just kind of giving a flow of consciousness,

[00:41:54] kind of a commentary. Pastor Chuck on Sunday nights, you know, 10 chapters in the Old

[00:41:59] Testament, he didn't have a thesis statement. You know, he might say, well, these three chapters

[00:42:03] are all about this kind of a thing, but it was just the revelation of information, if you would.

[00:42:10] Here's how it all fits together. So I think a thesis statement would be counterproductive

[00:42:14] in the Bible study kind of approach the run on commentary. And some people will poo poo

[00:42:22] the run on commentary. Listen, it built a whole generation of Calvary pastors. There's

[00:42:29] something powerful, powerful in that anytime God's word is exposit, you're exposing God's word,

[00:42:36] his heart, his mind. And so if it doesn't have a thesis statement, I don't think that there's

[00:42:41] necessarily anything that suffers from that. I'm a sermonic preacher. I went to San Jose

[00:42:45] Bible College, I grew up in the Church of Christ, Christian Church Church of Christ,

[00:42:48] went to San Jose Bible College in the early 70s, and we were taught to preach. It was a Bible

[00:42:54] college for preachers. And a sermon has a theme. It has a structure. You basically want to say

[00:43:05] one thing. My last sermon was on Isaiah 42 verse one.

[00:43:10] Oh, it was really good. I just got through

[00:43:21] the first three phrases. So one A, one B, one C, and then one D says he will bring justice to the

[00:43:29] nations. To me, justice is a huge theme. And I want to expand on it. So I just talked about

[00:43:37] being a servant out of verse one. And so I had a theme. I can't remember what my thesis was, per se,

[00:43:48] but that we're all servants. And here's what a servant is. And here's what a servant struggles

[00:43:53] with submitting your will to the will of another, which is a horrible demeaning of human

[00:44:00] person. And we call it slavery. So how could Jesus submit his will to the Father? We talked

[00:44:05] about desiring what God desires, because if there's a clash of desires, there's going to be a competition

[00:44:10] of wills. So if I desire God, my will is going to fall in line. And so we explored those kinds of

[00:44:16] themes. But it was all bundled around being a servant of God, being a servant of God, being

[00:44:22] a servant of God. And then had I gone on to the he will bring justice to the nations.

[00:44:27] I would have switched themes. And not that that would have been bad per se, but I wanted

[00:44:33] to camp on this. So I think a sermon by its very end, by its very teleolat teleology, if that's if

[00:44:41] we can use that word in sermonizing, it has a different teleology than Bible.

[00:44:48] Run on Bible commentary and Bible study. And so it's it to me, it's a different animal and

[00:44:53] therefore needs to be dealt with differently. And so things. Yeah. So a sermon

[00:45:00] needs or benefits from a thesis, whereas a consecutive Bible study maybe doesn't.

[00:45:10] Yeah, sure. And you picked out my thesis from Psalm 29.

[00:45:15] Well, because you said it.

[00:45:16] Well, well, sure. Sure. Yeah.

[00:45:18] And you shouldn't it's not that you should make a thesis and then I'll say it.

[00:45:21] You should make a thesis and then say it. And you buy price at it more than once or twice.

[00:45:26] You know, and so that thesis statement helps to to read the various parts together into into a

[00:45:33] coherent whole. You know, and then every Sunday morning, Chuck would speak, you know, 90 minutes

[00:45:38] on Sunday night and go through 10 chapters of the Old Testament, five chapters of the New Testament.

[00:45:41] But Sunday morning was a 20 minute sermon or 30 minute sermon. It was a sermon. It was

[00:45:47] gathered around a theme. He had a thesis statement. And then he had point one,

[00:45:51] point two, point three, you know, kind of the thing. So Chuck did both. Yeah.

[00:45:56] And they're both expository. Well, I appreciate your thoughts on that. And then also, yeah,

[00:46:03] kind of a nuanced one, you know, rather than saying like, Oh, well, everyone needs it.

[00:46:07] And if you don't, you're not doing it right. But yeah, I agree. It serves a very valuable

[00:46:12] purpose. And I would say about 50% of my sermons have a thesis statement and then

[00:46:19] 50% don't. I'd like if more of them did, but actually, Tim, they're hard to do, I find it's

[00:46:24] a lot easier to kind of clump together a bunch of ideas and then just and then just talk.

[00:46:29] But to really have it coalesce into like a short, portable, powerful phrase is hard.

[00:46:38] And if it was easier, I would do it every week. But as it stands, I am yeah.

[00:46:44] But that reminds me of, you're probably familiar with this book,

[00:46:49] Creaching With Freshness by Bruce Ma. Ma Winnie.

[00:46:56] If not all get this book, you would love, you would love this book, especially with

[00:47:02] expositors collective tell you it's, it's get it. I won't do any spoiler, but it's easy.

[00:47:09] It's easy to read. It's simple, but it's powerful and it's deep. So anyway,

[00:47:14] Creaching With Freshness by Bruce Ma. Ma Winnie, we'll assume. Yeah.

[00:47:19] There'll be a link in the show notes for everyone else and I'll make sure that I get one straight

[00:47:23] away. Well, Tim, this is great. I mean, we could keep on showing each other books from our

[00:47:27] bookshelves and stretch this out even further. I could knock down even more stuff from myself.

[00:47:33] Yeah, why not? But yeah. There we go.

[00:47:38] Yeah, pretty good time and thank you for sharing not just like the insights from that one message,

[00:47:44] but just a life of 51 plus years of ministry and more formative years before that. But

[00:47:52] we benefit from that. And so yeah, I honor you. Thank you. And to the listeners of this

[00:47:57] podcast, I hope that this episode and all that we do at Expositors Collective help you to grow

[00:48:02] in your personal study and public proclamation of God's word.

[00:48:07] All right. Well, thank you so much for listening all the way to the end. I really enjoyed talking

[00:48:13] about books, recommending books back and forth. And you can find links to the J.Cid,

[00:48:21] Lil' Baxter and other resources that are mentioned in the show notes.

[00:48:24] I'm going to end this episode with an invitation from Pastor Heath Hardesty

[00:48:29] to invite you to come to his church and he's hosting us on the 24th and 25th of May

[00:48:35] for our Expositors Collective training event. So I'll see you next Tuesday for episode 327.

[00:48:43] And hopefully I'll see many of you in Pleasanton, California later on in the month of May. God

[00:48:50] bless. Hey, everyone. Heath Hardesty here, Pastor Valley Community Church in Pleasanton,

[00:48:56] California. I want to invite you to come out on May 24th and 25th to the Expositors Collective

[00:49:02] interactive training event here in the beautiful Bay Area. This will help you grow in your personal

[00:49:07] study and the public proclamation of God's word. This will be a joyful time where we learn new

[00:49:13] skills and we do it in community all for the glory of God. So bring your team, come on out.

[00:49:19] It'll be a powerful time of learning how to preach God's word in a joyful and powerful way.

[00:49:26] We hope to see you then. This podcast is a part of CGN Media, a podcast network that points to

[00:49:33] Christ. We are supported by listeners like you. To help us create more great shows,

[00:49:37] visit cgnmedia.org slash support.